70 Contemporary Evolution. 



changes are harmless to it, since they will but occasion 

 the evolution of a new power. 



If we regard the Church as a complex organism, it 

 must, like every other organism, live by a series of actions 

 responsive to the effects produced on it by the environ- 

 ment. 



The action of the environment may be either to dis- 

 integrate and destroy, or to consolidate and perfect it, 

 and such action will destroy the Church if it is not able 

 to effect internal modifications adequately responding to 

 external changes. 



It is manifest that a great process of external disinte- 

 gration has taken place as regards the Church's social 

 relations a process crippling its power of action on its 

 old basis. The question then is, Has this action been or 

 not been accompanied by a process of internal integration 

 which has more and more perfected and strengthened the 

 Church's power of action on a new basis, and fitted it 

 better than ever before for the struggles of the future ? 



To ascertain the probable efficacy of such integrating 

 action, if it exists, we must first endeavour to find out what 

 is the social system likely to replace that which seems 

 to be passing away, and must pass away if the existing 

 anti-theocratic movement continues to augment and de- 

 velop itself. We must thus inquire, in order to see whether 

 the integrations arising in the Christian Church are or 

 are not calculated so to meet the effects of the disintegra- 



